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DOJ and SEC dismissed all charges against Al-Naji
“The cases that the SEC and the Department of Justice brought against Nader have been dismissed. The DOJ dismissed in March 2025, and the SEC dismissed with prejudice — meaning it can’t be refiled — in March 2026. This comes after the founder was charged with defrauding investors of $3 million and running an unregistered securities offering.”
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Basis returned $140 million to investors in 2018
“I ended up returning the entire $140 million to investors; they got back like 94 cents on the dollar. I also didn't pay myself while doing it, so I literally had less money after than when I started. I had full control of the entity and over 75% of the equity, so if I wanted to grab cash, I certainly could have, but I decided to do the right thing instead.”
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DESO creates censorship-resistant social media on blockchain
“DESO is short for decentralized social, and you can basically think of it as like Twitter or X, but on a blockchain. What that means is that when you make a post, it's actually stored on a fully decentralized blockchain and nobody can censor it. Just like nobody can take your Bitcoin, nobody can censor your content.”
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Al-Naji mined early Bitcoin on college campus electricity
“In 2012, when I was in college, I actually was able to mine 24 Bitcoin on free campus electricity. That's how easy it was to mine Bitcoin back then, you could just do it in your dorm. I remember I was so taken by it that I took a wad of cash to a CVS convenience store to send it to Mt. Gox just to buy more.”
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Bank-backed stablecoins won via geopolitical alignment
“It became clear to me that bank-backed stablecoins were going to win because they were what we referred to at the time as geopolitically aligned. This basically means they're not going to be shut down because they funnel foreign money into US treasuries. We realized that was going to happen in 2018 when Coinbase and Circle launched USDC.”